


pain is part of the package, darling

by petroltogo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bruises, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Sam is suspicious, Sam is worried, Slight Angst (I'm not sure if it's actually strong enough), Tony has a secret, Tony is acting suspicious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 07:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10239317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: It’s pure coincidence, the first time Sam notices the bruises. And, just like that, he can’t stop noticing them.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've posted something (my muse has been a little fickle lately) but finally I've got something new for you (which I wrote whilst procrastinating my other WIPs *cough*)
> 
> I hope you like it :)

**Part I**

They haven’t been in a fight in over three weeks, which is the only reason why Sam even notices.

The team has come together in the kitchen on one of those rare Sunday mornings where everyone is accounted for and nobody is in hiding to avoid retribution for their latest prank, which is in itself unusual. So is Tony joining them, not wearing his perfectly fitted bespoke suit but a lose T-shirt and sweatpants.

Which is not adorable at all, because Tony is a grown man and Sam really needs to get a handle on this ridiculous crush he’s been harbouring for his team mate for an awkwardly long time. Even when Tony is glaring blearily at everyone but Clint—who hands him a cup of freshly brewed coffee, which explains the lack of hostility—Sam wishes the genius would be leaning against him instead of the damn counter. He never liked the stupid thing anyways—and yes, definitely ridiculous. 

Sam averts his gaze and pretends he wasn’t just irrationally jealous of a kitchen counter. Nope, that sure didn’t happen. His attention is drawn back to source of his obsession a moment later, when Tony sets his now empty cup down with a gentle _clack_ and yawns so wide his jaw cracks, arms raised above his head.

“Long night with that secret girlfriend we all pretend you didn’t disappear with yesterday?” Clint wiggles his eyebrows but there’s genuine curiosity in his voice. 

Tony’s newest relationship is a constant source of jokes and teasing from the other Avengers’, mainly because he’s managed to keep it a complete secret. Not even Pepper or Rhodey know, and that’s, well. _Unusual_ doesn’t even begin to cover it.

For once though, Sam is too distracted to be bothered by yet another inconvenient reminder of the not unimportant fact that Tony is taken and he should really get over it. Because there, on the inside of Tony’s upper arm, where his T-shirt has ridden up, is a bruise. It’s a striking, bright blue colour, with sprinkles of purple and fading green surrounding it, and it makes absolutely no sense.

Sure, bruises aren’t anything rare in their line of work, but the last few weeks have been quiet, almost uncomfortably so. And as much as Steve likes to nag Tony about his lack of self-care, usually it’s more the sleep and nutrition that’s the problem.

So, because Sam is a huge dumbass who can’t keep his mouth shut and is way too invested into anything involving Tony Stark, he blurts out, “Where did you get that bruise?”—with the subtlety of Steve Rogers at his most stubborn, if the telling gaze Natasha shoots him is anything to go by.

Tony blinks at him, brown eyes a lot sharper than they were seconds ago, shrugs. “Don’t remember.” He grins lewdly, causing Clint to crack up and make the sort of suggestive joke that makes the tip of Steve’s ears turn bright red, and the conversation moves on.

It doesn’t escape Sam’s notice though that Tony doesn’t lift his arms over his head again, and he _wonders_.

*

“Ow.” Tony lets out a low, pained grown.

The glance Bruce shoots him is in equal parts fond and concerned. “You sure you’re alright, Tony?”

“Yeah, you took that building down pretty hard,” Clint grins wickedly at the memory—and perhaps at the way Steve’s eyes narrow at Tony’s pitiful form. 

Steve is a _nightmare_ when it comes to getting your injuries checked out properly, which is the most hypocritical bullshit Sam’s ever heard. He’s once watched Steve tear Clint a new one for not telling anybody about his cracked rips whilst simultaneously waving away the doctor trying to remove a knife big enough to feature in every cheap horror flick that had been stuck in his leg. Granted, it had only been a flesh wound and the super soldier body could take it, but the audacity had struck Sam speechless all the same.

“I told you the suit could handle the impact,” Tony whines. Then, without turning his head, “Cap, put those judgy eyes away before I throw something. Seriously, I’m _fine_.”

Tony finds Sam’s eyes and the two share a long-suffering glance of wordless understanding in regards to over-bearing team mates.

“Tony-” Steve never did know when to quit.

“I’m fine,” he repeats, a slow, easy smile on his lips that is contradicted by the annoyed twitch in his left eye. “Just a little sore, nothing to do with the crash. Promise.”

*

They’re in the gym, almost two weeks later. It’s Natasha’s turn to teach the rest of the team a particular move. At least that was what this meeting was supposed to be about. 

But then Clint accused her of showing off and the two of them got into a play-fight that turned into a scarily-real-but-still-just-having-fun-kicking-my-friend’s-ass-fight very quickly—as all fights between them are known to—Steve and Tony got into another discussion about proper self-care—the kind Steve will inevitably storm away from in a couple of minutes, because those two are completely unable to ever just _talk—_ and Bruce has taken advantage of everyone’s distraction to sneak back into the safety of his lab, cruelly abandoning Sam in the process—which he’ll get the other man back for. In a non-Hulk-invoking way.

His careful revenge planning is interrupted by Tony yelling something unintelligible, pulling one leg of his favourite sweatpants up and gesturing wildly at Steve, clearly trying to make a point that won’t make any sense to an uninvolved bystander.

What really catches Sam’s eye though isn’t Steve’s eye-roll, it’s the longish bruise on the back of Tony’s left calf. It’s a couple of days old, the outer edge already fading into green-yellowish tones, but that means it must have been a pretty hard hit—or maybe a shove, because it looks more like the back of Tony’s leg made a very painful contact with a hard edge.

It’s most likely nothing. Tony is a not-quite-ordinary human on a team of superheroes after all, and really, when you think about it, it seems kinda weird how worked up Sam gets over a couple of harmless bruises.

And yet.

There’s this moment where Sam swears Tony catches him staring, where the slight smile freezes on his lips and he lets his pants fall down again, an odd expression on his face that Sam could’ve sworn was _shame_. And it’s no proof, not even close to it, but it’s _something_ , and even though he doesn’t really want to, even though the thought seems absolutely ludicrous, Sam _suspects_.

*

On Thursday afternoon, Tony stumbles into the living room, looking like death warmed over, all waxy, pale skin and sweaty hair sticking to his forehead. Sam heroically stamps down the urge to throw himself across the room and bury Tony in a pile of blankets.

“You don’t look so good,” Natasha comments in that dry voice she uses to describe a mutated T-rex clone the size of a three store building as ‘ _big enough to do some damage_ ’.

“Too much...spinning...” Tony moans pitifully. “Make it stop!”

“You forgot to eat lunch again, didn’t you.” Bruce is less than impressed by the pout he gets in response to his question-slash-statement. His deeply unamused glare doesn’t fool anyone though, especially when he proceeds to hand Tony a juice box and some crackers with a resigned sigh.

Sam decides to leave them to it, having no desire to get dragged into another one of Bruce’s rants. He pats Tony’s head in passing and smiles at the weak glare the pale genius shoots him in return.

*

They’re in one of SHIELD’s emergency decontamination showers because fighting a giant gooey worm determined to flatten Manhattan into the ground is how Sam spends his Friday nights these days. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone when said worm, upon his defeat, detonated, spraying everything in its vicinity with a rainbow coloured slime. But they were caught unaware all the same. It is sticky, smelly, disgusting and will possibly turn Sam into a moustache-twirling villain any second now. Which is why they’ve been carefully escorted into this hastily erected SHIELD bunker in the first place.

 _Them_ being Sam and Tony—of course they had been the only ones close enough to get hit by the blast. Sam still can’t remember at which point in the fight Tony was forced or chose to leave his suit, but clearly it did happen. Otherwise he might not have been here now, on Sam’s side of the glass wall, yelling at the top of his voice at some poor SHIELD agent, who stutters something about protocols and safety measures whenever Tony needs to take a breath.

It’s kind of ridiculous.

Apparently the agent thinks so too because he finally storms off—to his credit, Sam would’ve quit several minutes ago—leaving a huffing Tony behind. Who continues to murmur complaints under his breath, but it’s less true resistance now and more complying while being as difficult as possible, just because he can. As proven by the fact that he’s reaching for his utterly ruined shirt and begins to unbutton it.

Shit. It hasn’t occurred to Sam until now, too busy being distracted by the fight, the goo, the Tony, but faced with his slowly undressing team mate, it suddenly becomes frighteningly clear that he’s going to share a decontamination shower with his crush.

“What are you waiting for?” Tony smirks invitingly over his shoulder and okay, Sam’s seen the guy use this expression against reporters daily, this should not have any affect on him at all. He can totally handle this. “An invitation?” Tony wiggles his butt jokingly.

Sam absolutely can’t handle this.

It’s lucky then, in the most terrible way, that he doesn’t have to. Because when Tony slips out of his pants—a move proven a lot more difficult by the goo that makes the fabric stick to your skin almost painfully—his inconvenient attraction is about the last thing on Sam’s mind.

Well, maybe not _last_. But definitely far below ‘ _What the fuck?!_ ’ and ‘ _Someone is gonna die for this_ ’ and ‘ _Get your shit together, Wilson, you are not helping!_ ’

The last one, at least, is undeniably true. Sam is unashamedly staring and with it being just the two of them, there really is no way Tony is going to miss it. He can’t help it though. Tony looks-

There are some scratches on his cheek and hands, and a thin, already clotted wound on his left shin. All of them undoubtedly the results of their most recent fight.

Then there are the bruises.

Then there are _the bruises_.

They spread out along Tony’s legs, starting at about mid-calf. They are single, longish bruises in light tones, the kinds you might gain from running into a door accidentally or stumbling on the stairs. Some are dotted on his kneecaps in dark blues and violets, whereas the ones on the insides of his knees are lighter, though the skin is still a little red. All in all, though colourful, those bruises are still fairly harmless. They stand out because of the sheer amount of them, not because one in particular looks terrible.

The same can’t be said for Tony’s thighs. They are a _mess_. The inside of Tony’s thighs looks like one giant bruise, except for the truly impressive range of colours. The skin is rubbed raw all over. Deep purple blotches, tiny sprinkles of an even darker colour, surrounded by fading stains of lighter blues and greens. There’s no system in them, no exact pattern, but the way the various discolourations bleed into each other is almost pretty, in an abstract, horrifying way.

This isn’t the kind of injury you get from a single incident, that much Sam knows immediately. The bruises are too layered for that. At least some of them are also too old to have been caused by their recent fighting. Never mind that Sam struggles to think of anything that could have caused Tony this kind of injury, especially inside the suit.

And Tony’s thighs, though clearly the worst, aren’t the end of it either. There are faint discolourations close to his hipbones and some more more visible ones on the insides of his upper arms. Those two have an unusual form, oval, almost round. The kind that Sam struggles to associate with any kind of accident. Hell, even on the bridge of his foot there are bruises, and dark ones at that.

In short, Tony looks like he’s been thrown down a couple of stairs, and that doesn’t even _begin_ to explain the state of his thighs.

Sam has also been staring at Tony for what feels like an eternity in abject horror, when Tony pointedly clears his throat. The teasing smile as slid off his face and it’s impossible not to notice that he’s angling his body away from Sam as much as possible—though his options are very limited.

“Like what you see?” Tony tries to joke, but his voice catches a little and his fingers curl slightly at his side, like he wants to hide away.

Sam hates it. He hates that unsure expression on Tony’s face, hates that he put it there. Hates that he has no clue how to ask the very obvious question without Tony clamming up and shutting him out. Most of all, Sam hates how incredibly out of his depth he feels.

This isn’t like him at all. He’s good at this stuff, usually. Good at getting stubborn assholes to open up about their messed up emotional state—case in point: Steve—he doesn’t bullshit and dance around a subject. He’s also never been in a situation like this.

Sam knows better than most that being a superhero doesn’t make you invincible, doesn’t even make you a functioning human. And he damn well knows that if he saw anyone else with these kinds of bruises, he’d call the police—and fuck, maybe it’d turn out to be nothing, but he sure as fuck wouldn’t take the chance. But with Tony? Who is he even supposed to call?

He’s known the guy for almost a year, has had a pathetic crush on him for going on four months and even he struggles with the idea that someone might be- hurting Tony. That Tony might _let them_.

Sam feels sick.

He gets through the shower in somewhat of a daze. He’s peripherally aware of the occasional, lingering gaze from Tony but he can’t- he doesn’t know. By the time it’s finally determined that they won’t be turned into the undoing of mankind and the two of them are back at the Tower, all Sam wants to do is get out of the sanitised clothes SHIELD gave them, crawl into his bed and sleep. If only to stop thinking for a while.

He can’t though.

He asks JARVIS to show him the security footage of the SHIELD bunkers instead. He needs to see it one more time, needs to convince himself that this is real.

“I’m sorry, Mister Wilson,” JARVIS replies without inflection, “it appears there has been a glitch. The last five hours seem to have accidentally been erased.”

For some reason, Sam isn’t surprised.

*

The next morning comes far too quickly. It appears Sam’s the only one to think so however. By the time he arrives in the kitchen, everyone else is already up and about. Bruce is standing at the stove, Clint appears to be losing a fight against the coffee machine. Tony is talking to Natasha, clearly already on his third coffee with how bubbly he is.

Everything is normal.

Then Sam meets Tony’s eyes for the briefest of moments before Tony averts his gaze—and Tony _never_ averts his gaze. Sam swallows and tries not to stare at his now fully clothed team mate, tries not to trace the lines where he knows the bruises are hidden.

The funny thing is that even now that Sam is paying attention, there’s nothing in Tony’s behaviour that gives him away. His jokes are as sharp and crass as ever, he doesn’t flinch even though the way Natasha pats his leg must have hurt. He’s just Tony, filling the entire room with his mere presence.

He doesn’t have any proof, but there’s no way to unsee the past twenty-four hours, and, even though he feels like half the pieces are still missing, Sam _knows_.

**Author's Note:**

> What do you think? Would you like to see more of this? Do you have any ideas in regards to Tony's bruises? And what do you think of Sam's suspicion/reaction? What should he do now?
> 
> So many questions! I'd love if you shared your thoughts with me! This has been a bit of a spur of the moment thing and I'm really curious about your feedback :)
> 
> You can also check out my marvel/Tony blog on tumblr [tonystarktogo](http://tonystarktogo.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I hope you're having a great day!


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